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Uganda Is Fixing Mobile Money for Merchants. Here Is What Changes for Your Shop.

Ugandan shop owner at market stall accepting mobile money payment on phone, Kampala market setting
Illustration by HotKiosk

Uganda has two big mobile money networks. MTN MoMo has about 53% of the market. Airtel Money has 42%. If your shop only accepts one, you are turning away nearly half your potential customers. The Bank of Uganda is now changing that — and doing more to help merchants manage money better.

The Split Network Problem

Right now, if a customer walks up to your stall and wants to pay by Airtel Money, but you only have an MTN merchant code, the payment does not go through. They either leave, find cash, or skip the sale.

This is a real problem. About 66% of all transactions in Uganda are still done in cash, even though millions of people use mobile money every day. One reason is that merchants and customers often use different networks, and the systems do not talk to each other.

MTN Uganda already has more than 200,000 registered MoMoPay merchants. But many shops accept only one network, or rely on a personal mobile money number instead of a business account. That creates its own problems.

What the Bank of Uganda Is Changing

The Bank of Uganda is rolling out what it calls the Digital Drive Project, according to reporting by Uganda Mirror on April 21, 2026. The goal is to lower the cost of digital payments and make them work better for small businesses.

The biggest change for merchants: one merchant code that works across both Airtel and MTN. Under the new system, a customer on any network can pay you using a single business code. You will not need separate accounts for different networks.

This is called interoperability. Merchants will no longer lose sales because a customer uses a different telecom than their payment account.

Your Dedicated Merchant Wallet

The Bank of Uganda is also introducing dedicated merchant wallets for shop owners.

Right now, many traders use their personal mobile money account to collect business payments. This mixes business money with personal money. It makes it hard to know how much your shop earned, how much you spent on stock, or how much profit you made.

A dedicated merchant wallet separates the two. Business payments go into one account. Personal money stays elsewhere. This makes bookkeeping simpler and gives you a cleaner record of your business transactions.

That clean record is also what lenders look at when you apply for a business loan.

One QR Code for Every Customer

The Bank of Uganda is also developing a national standard for QR codes. The goal is one QR code at your counter that any mobile money app can scan, whether a customer uses MTN, Airtel, a bank app, or a third-party wallet.

This is how Kenya's M-PESA QR codes work, and how several West African countries have set up merchant payments. Uganda is now building toward the same system.

If you currently display multiple QR codes at your stall or counter, the new standard would replace them with a single code.

Going Beyond Payments: Your Phone as a Business Tool

At the same time, a campaign is reaching traders on the ground in Uganda.

The UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), working with Outbox Uganda and the Mastercard Foundation, launched the "Business Ku Ssimu Yo" campaign in Luweero district in April 2026. The phrase means "business on your phone" in Luganda.

The campaign focuses on a gap many traders fall into: they use mobile money to receive payments, but they withdraw the cash immediately. By doing that, they erase the digital record of the transaction.

That record matters. Digital lenders in Uganda and across East Africa now use mobile money transaction history to assess creditworthiness. If your phone shows consistent business income over months, you have a better chance of getting a loan. If you withdraw everything immediately, your phone's memory is blank.

The campaign encourages traders to:

The phone moves money, but is not yet consistently used to organise, track, or reflect the story of the business over time. — UNCDF Uganda

Why This Matters

For Ugandan shop owners, these two developments point in the same direction. Uganda is trying to make digital payments more useful for small businesses, not just more available.

Right now, Uganda's mobile money market processes tens of billions of dollars per year. But most of that flow passes through and is withdrawn as cash. The merchant infrastructure, including dedicated wallets, cross-network acceptance, and standardized QR codes, has lagged behind the consumer side.

Getting a dedicated merchant wallet, accepting both Airtel and MTN through a single code, and keeping your transaction records intact can do three things for your shop:

  1. Increase your customer base — any customer can pay you regardless of their network
  2. Improve your bookkeeping — business and personal money no longer mix
  3. Build your credit profile — a clean digital transaction record makes you eligible for working capital loans

Conclusion

The Bank of Uganda is working to make mobile money more practical for merchants. Cross-network merchant codes, dedicated business wallets, and a national QR standard are all moving forward. If you run a shop in Uganda, now is a good time to register a merchant wallet, start keeping your business payments separate, and let your transaction history build up. That record may be your ticket to a loan when you need stock.

Sources

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